If you can’t decide on what to read, the Minotaur Spring Sampler is the perfect way to choose. Whether you want to start a series or read a standalone novel, the Sampler has you covered. With five books to choose from, the Sampler contains the beginnings of five different mysteries. Just download for free on…
I am a very visual person. I learn by reading, not by listening. When I write (and read!) I see the scene unfold. But it wasn’t until my third published book, The Kill, back in 2006 (!) I learned how to choreograph the action in my books. Order The Kill here: During revisions, my editor…
The Riddle of the Traveling Skull (1934) is an incredible book and my sixth favorite novel of all time. At the beginning of this story, the protagonist comes upon an oddly adorned human skull in a travel bag, and what follows is the wildly twisting investigation of the aforementioned cranial artifact. After reading eighty pages…
Six years ago, in the run-up to wrenching political chaos in this country, I faced an important personal choice: continue on my comfortable path in romance as Victoria Dahl or try something terrifyingly new. I’d faced the question before and been able to ignore it. Romance is a blindingly busy genre, and I wrote two…
My new novel, The Night Gate, found its roots in the Coronavirus pandemic which has swept the world. I had planned to write a book set on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, in the Arctic Circle. My story was well-developed, the research done, and my trip to research the location booked for last May. Then…
In my Kinship Historical Mystery Series, Lily Ross serves as Sheriff of Bronwyn County in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio, in the 1920s. Lily’s character is inspired by Ohio’s true first female sheriff—Maude Collins, who became sheriff of Vinton County in 1925 after her husband was killed in the line of duty. (In real life,…
I write romance and thrillers, but even the majority of my romances are rooted in suspense and mystery. Suspense is what makes my fingers hum, challenges my mind, and is always where I feel I’m at my best. Considering my husband is obsessed with serial killers like Michael Myers you can bet he always has…
From its very inception, Margaret Truman’s Capital Crimes series has excelled at stitching tales of murder and mystery with Washington, D.C. as a backdrop. Look no further than the title of each of the now 31 entries to find a particular setting in the Capital where a murder sets off a high stakes game or…
Jane K. Cleland On Writing Jane Austen’s Lost Letters I was born loving Jane Austen—I mean that literarily. Some expectant mothers play classical music to their unborn children. Others sing lullabies. My mother read Pride and Prejudice to me in the womb. To say my mother was a Jane Austen fan is like calling the…
How does one account for the sheer number of mysteries in which food, both for good and evil, features prominently? So prominently that it’s virtually a character itself—or at least a character witness. Perhaps it’s because food (the cooking of it, the eating of it, the sharing of it) offers so many lovely options for…
